The  Vision  of  the  Dead 


A  SERMON 


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GEORQE  A.  GORDON 


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PRINCETON,  N.  J. 


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Presented   by^D^TY^VA \  ^^\^TX)vAKe.  ~DZD, 
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BX  7233  .G6  V5 

Gordon,  George  Angier,  185 

1929. 
The  vision  of  the  dead 


Wt)t  Vision  of  tfje  SDeaO 


A  SERMON 


PREACHED    AT   THE 


OLD  SOUTH  CHURCH,  BOSTON 

SUNDAY  MORNING,  NOVEMBER  28,  1897 


BY  THE 

Rev.  GEORGE  A.  GORDON,  D.D. 


PUBLISHED   BY  REQUEST 


BOSTON,  1897 


The  Riverside  Press,  Cambridge,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 
Printed  by  H.  O.  Houghton  &  Co. 


THIS   SERMON 

WHICH   IS  A   HINT  TOWARD  THE 

SOLUTION    OF   THE 

GRAVEST   OF   ALL   PROBLEMS 

IS   OFFERED   IN 

EVER-DEEPENING   RESPECT   AND   LOVE 

TO  THE  PEOPLE  OF  THE  OLD   SOUTH  CHURCH 

BY     WHOM     IT     WAS     HEARD 

AND  AT  WHOSE   REQUEST 

IT   IS  PRINTED 


THE  VISION  OF  THE  DEAD 

"  And  I  saw  the  dead,  small  and  great,  stand  before  God."  — 
Rev.  xx.  12. 

This  is  the  great  Christian  seer's  vision  of  the 
dead.  It  was  indeed  a  momentous  experience 
that  he  embodied  in  these  words.  Behind  the 
vision  beats  his  new  passion  for  righteousness, 
back  of  it  lies  his  profound  Christian  interest  in 
man,  his  wonder  as  to  what  becomes  of  him  after 
death,  his  longing  to  know  what  relation  all  souls 
here  and  everywhere  bear  to  the  Infinite  Soul. 
His  serious  concern  for  man,  his  sense  of  the 
tragedy  in  man's  history,  the  burden  of  his  heart 
as  he  thinks  of  the  world  as  it  is,  and  then  upon 
the  God  and  Father  of  Jesus  Christ,  —  all  lie 
behind  this  vision. 

The  vision  itself  is  full  of  seriousness  and 
reserve.  It  is  not  a  shallow  optimism,  shouting 
itself  hoarse  over  the  certainty  of  universal  salva- 
tion, while  it  has  no  word  of  rebuke  for  present 
rampant  iniquity.  It  is  not  that.  It  is  full  of 
awe  as  itself  in  the  presence  of  God.  Neither 
is  it,  on  the  other  hand,  a  map  of  heaven  and 
hell.  It  has  no  details  for  the  curious  imagination. 
It  is  full  of  dignity,  it  is  under  great  reserve.     It 


6  THE  VISION   OF  THE  DEAD 

sees  one  sublime  and  infinite  thing,  the  whole 
universe  filled  with  the  being  of  God,  the  entire 
human  world  rolled  up  into  the  presence  of  God. 
It  is  the  vision  of  one  supreme  thing,  the  dead  — 
all  the  dead,  the  dead  significant  and  insignificant 

—  standing  before  God. 

The  great  Christian  seer's  right  to  his  vision  is 
stamped  upon  it.  He  is  himself  in  the  stress  of 
the  moral  process.  He  is  himself  doing  battle 
for  righteousness ;  he  is  fighting  for  surer  stand- 
ing in  the  truth  of  Christ  and  the  esteem  of  God. 
He  has  but  one  interest  for  himself  and  the  world, 

—  Christian  righteousness.  All  other  needs  are  as 
nothing  when  set  beside  this.  And  because  he  is 
ever  keeping  in  view  this  end  of  righteousness, 
because  his  love  for  it  grows  deeper  the  longer  he 
serves  it  and  suffers  for  it,  because  he  feels  him- 
self in  his  moral  victories  and  hopes,  in  his  Chris- 
tian experiences  and  expectations,  getting,  as  it 
were,  into  the  great  current  of  God's  redemptive 
movement  in  human  history,  he  desires  to  specu- 
late, that  is,  to  look  beyond  himself  to  see,  if  he 
can,  how  it  fares  with  the  whole.  He  feels  that 
because  he  is  seeking  personal  righteousness  and 
doing  what  he  can  to  destroy  the  works  of  the 
devil,  he  has  a  right  to  lift  his  eyes  to  the  Highest 
and  ask  how  it  fares  with  the  dead.  His  wide 
thinking  comes  up  out  of  the  energy  of  his  per- 
sonal struggle  to  be  a  Christian,  and  upon  his 


THE  VISION  OF  THE  DEAD  7 

personal  struggle  to  be  a  Christian  the  wide 
thinking  returns  to  greaten  his  heart. 

All  these  conditions  must  unite  to  qualify  us 
for  this  vision  of  the  dead.  There  must  lie  back 
of  the  vision  a  Christian  interest  in  man.  Man's 
sin  must  be  recognized,  his  need  of  moral  deliver- 
ance and  the  serious  peril  of  his  condition.  There 
must  be  sympathy  with  man,  and  a  passionate 
wonder  as  to  his  deepest  relation  to  God.  When 
your  child  is  sick  you  turn  away  the  curiosity  of 
an  enemy.  You  cannot  gratify  a  frivolous  friend  ; 
you  demand  sympathy,  profound  and  eager,  be- 
fore you  can  tell  your  sorrow.  The  vision  is  not 
for  the  inhuman  soul,  nor  for  the  frivolous  heart ; 
it  is  for  the  spirit  burdened  with  fear,  with  hope, 
and  full  of  love. 

And  the  vision  must  not  run  out  into  wild 
detail.  Human  certainties  of  universal  salvation, 
in  a  world  as  wicked  as  this  is,  are  tremendous 
dogmatisms.  If  it  is  true,  as  it  certainly  is,  that 
no  wise  general  will  fight  without  a  good  prospect 
of  success,  it  is  equally  true  that  no  wise  general 
will  boast  of  his  victory  before  it  is  won.  He 
will  go  into  the  battle  believing  that  he  is  to  con- 
quer, hoping  that  his  fears  may  all  prove  to  be 
groundless  ;  but  he  will  defer  the  display  of  bunt- 
ing and  the  booming  of  cannon  until  the  fight 
is  over.  A  similar  dignity  and  reserve  should 
characterize  every  disciple  of  Christ.     He  should 


8  THE  VISION  OF  THE  DEAD 

share  the  confidence  of  his  Master :  "  I  saw  Satan 
as  lightning  fall  from  heaven  ; "  he  should  also 
share  his  reserve  :  "  Are  there  few  that  be  saved  ?  " 
"  Enter  ye  in  at  the  strait  gate."  It  is  self- 
evident  that  only  as  we  believe  in  the  possible 
defeat  of  wickedness,  only  as  we  are  confident  of 
the  possible  triumph  of  righteousness,  shall  we 
enter  the  great  conflict  with  heart  and  hope  ;  and 
it  is  likewise  self-evident  that  if  we  are  wise  we 
shall  not  in  advance  of  the  issue  of  the  battle 
shout  our  triumphs  from  the  house-top.  We 
shall  not  despair  of  the  overwhelming  majority  of 
our  fellow  men  with  one  scheme,  nor  shall  we  rush 
them  all  into  heaven  with  another.  We  shall 
simply  clear  the  deck  of  our  ship  for  action  ;  we 
shall  try  to  discern  through  the  din  and  smoke  of 
our  own  cannonade  the  roar  of  the  whole  fleet ; 
we  shall  believe  that  the  universal  conflict  between 
righteousness  and  unrighteousness  is  on,  and  we 
shall  contend  that  it  is  possible  that  the  Christian 
side  may  win.  We  shall  add  in  Luther's  words 
the  historic  ground  of  our  confidence  :  — 

"  Did  we  in  our  own  strength  confide, 
Our  striving  would  be  losing ; 
Were  not  the  right  man  on  our  side 
The  man  of  God's  own  choosing. 
Dost  ask  who  that  may  be  ? 
Christ  Jesus,  it  is  He  ; 
Lord  Sabaoth  is  His  name, 
From  age  to  age  the  same, 
And  He  must  win  the  battle." 


THE   VISION   OF  THE  DEAD  9 

Nor  must  our  interest  in  this  high  theme  be 
mere  speculation.  We  have  no  business  with 
opinions  upon  the  conflict  of  truth  with  error,  un- 
less we  are  doing  battle  on  the  side  of  truth.  We 
have  no  right  to  the  Christian  vision  of  the  dead, 
unless  we  are  living  in  the  strength  of  the  Chris- 
tian vision  for  ourselves.  We  have  no  title  to 
hope  for  the  world  so  long  as  we  are  without  God, 
and  therefore  without  hope  for  our  own  life. 
Only  as  we  ourselves  stand  in  the  stress  of  the 
Christian  life  are  we  justified  in  looking  abroad 
upon  the  fortunes  of  our  kind.  Only  as  we 
rejoice  in  the  secret  of  the  Lord,  and  long  to 
impart  it  to  the  world,  how  great  soever  the  cost 
may  be  to  ourselves,  is  it  legitimate  for  us  to 
wonder  how  it  fares  with  the  innumerable  dead. 
Intellectual  interest  in  the  relation  of  the  race  to 
God  that  springs  out  of  a  heart  morally  dead  is 
as  barren  as  the  desert.  The  men  who  are  with- 
out a  prevailing  interest  in  righteousness  have  no 
more  right  to  be  in  at  the  discussion  of  high  Chris- 
tian  themes  than  Satan  had  to  present  himself 
among  the  sons  of  God.  It  was  a  great  Greek 
philosopher,  a  man  with  an  eye  for  truth  and  a 
boundless  feeling  for  reality,  who  first  insisted 
that  for  the  fruitful  study  of  the  science  of  mo- 
rality it  was  indispensable  that  men  should  have 
moral  purpose  and  some  moral  experience.  Un- 
der the  protection  of  such  authority,  it  is  surely 


10  THE  VISION   OF  THE  DEAD 

justifiable  for  the  preacher  of  righteousness  to 
contend  that  so  long  as  a  man  is  not  himself 
fighting  for  a  Christian  character  he  is  unfit  for 
a  share  in  the  Christian  vision  of  the  dead.  But 
with  the  great  seer's  experience,  with  his  noble 
dignity  and  reserve,  and  with  his  rigorous  use  of 
the  wide  outlook  as  an  inspiration  to  ever  greater 
moral  strenuousness,  I  think  we  may  profit  by  his 
vision. 

1.  We  learn  from  the  vision  that  all  the  dead 
are  in  the  presence  of  God.  That  phrase,  "  the 
small  and  the  great,"  is  full  of  tenderness  and  hu- 
manity. No  one  is  great  except  through  his  ever- 
lasting relation  to  God  ;  and  no  one  is  really  small 
who  is  bound  by  that  indissoluble  tie.  How  infi- 
nitely dear  the  words  of  the  text  must  be  to  those 
who  have  lost  children,  and  to  those  who  take  a 
deep  interest  in  the  child-life  of  the  world.  And 
how  vast  this  class  is  can  be  readily  imagined, 
when  it  is  remembered  that  in  each  generation 
about  one  half  the  human  race  die  in  infancy. 
How  many  darkened  homes  there  are  in  every 
generation  ;  how  overwhelming  the  sum  of  them 
in  all  the  generations.  What  is  the  fortune  of 
all  these  little  ones,  who  came  and  looked,  with 
eyes  of  wonder  and  trust,  into  a  few  beloved 
faces  ?  They  had  no  language  but  a  cry ;  speech- 
less they  came  and  speechless  they  went.  They 
were  of  no  value  for  this  wild  world.     What  has 


THE  VISION  OF  THE  DEAD  11 

become  of  this  unnumbered  multitude  of  infant 
souls  ?  Were  they  too  small  for  conservation,  too 
insignificant  for  the  survival  of  death?  Are  we 
to  think  of  one  half  the  human  race  as  thus  anni- 
hilated at  death  ?  Are  the  dead  children  of  the 
world  no  more  ?  Are  they  dear  only  to  the  fanat- 
ical father,  to  the  wild  fondness  of  the  mother  ? 
Do  the  lives  that  perish  early  lose  all  opportunity  ? 
They  were  forbidden  to  go  on  here ;  are  they  for- 
bidden to  go  on  elsewhere,  crowded  back  against 
the  protesting  cry  of  helpless  innocence,  —  the  cry 
that  is  the  most  pathetic  and  moving  thing  in  all 
the  world,  —  into  the  blackness  of  eternal  night  ? 
This  vision  of  the  dead  says,  No.  The  little  ones 
go  on ;  they  are  very  small,  but  they  are  gathered 
about  the  throne  ;  they  are  so  very  tiny,  so  greatly 
overshadowed,  but  still  they  make  way  for  them- 
selves. They  have  no  history,  but  they  have  an 
endless  opportunity.  They  have  no  place  in  the 
memory  of  the  world,  but  they  stand  before  God. 
Then  there  are  the  multitudes  of  insignificant 
lives.  When  on  an  ocean  voyage  a  poor  stoker 
dies,  at  once  and  without  ceremony  or  ritual  of 
any  kind  — 

"  His  heavy-shotted  hammock-shroud 
Drops  in  his  vast  and  wandering  grave." 

And  the  poor  sailor  represents  the  overwhelming 
majority :  while  they  live  they  are  hardly  counted; 
they  are  used  as  things  and  not  as  men,  and  when 


12  THE  VISION   OF  THE  DEAD 

they  die  nothing  stops.  The  great  world,  like  the 
great  steamer,  does  not  even  slacken  its  speed. 
These  uncounted  thousands  who  toil  in  the  depths 
in  ship  and  in  mine,  who  sow  and  reap  in  all  the 
valleys  and  on  all  the  hillsides  of  the  globe,  who 
weave  in  factories  all  good  and  costly  fabrics,  and 
who  carry  them  to  the  ends  of  the  earth,  —  how  lit- 
tle note  of  them  the  world  takes.  Think  of  the  ser- 
vice that  is  required  to  keep  a  city  clean,  to  keep 
it  in  light  and  in  repair,  to  keep  it  safe  and  comfort- 
able, to  make  it  even  a  little  more  beautiful  from 
decade  to  decade.  Think  of  the  activity  requisite 
to  keep  our  country  going,  the  toil  indispensable 
to  the  continuance  of  an  empire  like  Great  Brit- 
ain. Her  civil  service  at  home  and  abroad,  her 
soldiers  in  all  the  ends  of  the  earth,  her  sailors 
upon  all  the  seas,  her  factories  in  ceaseless  whirl 
turning  out  goods  for  the  world,  her  ships  going 
forth  to  bring  from  all  peoples  bread  for  her  own 
homes,  her  multiplied  industries  upon  her  own  is- 
land, and  the  labor  represented  in  her  ever-increas- 
ing communication  with  every  nation  under  heaven 
mean  almost  unimaginable  activity.  And  when  the 
whole  world  is  taken  into  account,  when  one  tries 
to  conceive  how  much  toil  is  represented  in  the 
continuance  of  the  race  through  each  new  day, 
one  finds  how  impossible  it  is  to  do  it  any  sort  of 
justice.  Every  home  in  every  civilized  country 
lives  upon  the  labor  of  the  world,  and  the  world  it- 


THE  VISION  OF  THE  DEAD  13 

self  is  kept  alive  and  going  by  a  service  that  in  its 
totality  is  simply  inconceivable.  And  the  greater 
part  of  this  immeasurable  service  is  done  by  in- 
significant persons.  They  have  not  the  gifts,  the 
education,  the  position,  the  wealth,  or  even  the 
character  that  give  conspicuousness.  They  are 
serving  for  the  most  part  under  compulsion  and 
with  a  subdued  protest  in  their  hearts.  They  are  in- 
dispensable to  the  world,  and  yet  they  do  not,  ex- 
cept in  a  limited  number  of  instances,  consciously 
share  in  the  best  religious  life  of  the  race.  Tested 
by  the  Christian  ideal,  they  are  candidates  for  the 
highest  things,  they  are  adjusted  to  an  endless  and 
ever-extending  opportunity  ;  but  they  have  no 
distinct  attainment  in  personal  righteousness. 
What  becomes  of  all  these  souls  at  death  ?  They 
did  the  world  an  indispensable  material  service 
while  they  lived,  but  they  could  not  be  described, 
by  the  widest  latitude  of  meaning,  as  Christian 
men  in  faith  and  character.  They  did  the  world's 
drudgery,  and  for  that  the  traditional  view  has 
no  better  reward  for  them  than  hell.  They  did 
the  world's  hardest  and  meanest  work,  and  the 
Christian  vision  of  the  dead  declares  that  they 
stand  before  God. 

Then,  too,  what  are  we  to  think  of  the  earlier 
races  of  man  ?  You  may  judge  of  the  character 
of  the  dead  by  the  character  of  the  living.  Of 
the  fifteen  hundred  million  human  inhabitants  of 


14  THE  VISION  OF  THE  DEAD 

the  globe  to-day,  how  few  could  be  called  great. 
Among:  the  multitude  of  the  clans  and  tribes  and 
nations,  how  few  are  the  individuals  who  share  in 
the  higher  life  of  the  world,  in  its  science,  its  art, 
its  faith,  its  best  religion.  Among  the  nominal 
Christians,  how  few  are  real  Christians ;  and 
when  the  serious  and  noble  lives  of  the  race  are 
collected  they  form  but  a  small  company  in  the 
midst  of  the  teeming  millions.  The  present  in- 
habitants of  the  globe  are  largely  without  the 
deliberate,  cherished,  rational  love  of  righteous- 
ness. The  race  to-day  the  world  over  is  still 
largely  in  its  sin.  This  is  the  condition  of  the 
present  generation,  and  on  the  whole  as  one  travels 
away  from  the  present  toward  the  far-off  morn- 
ing of  mankind  the  generations  lose  in  moral 
attainment.  At  each  step  backward  the  noble 
lives  become  fewer,  the  earthly  lives  become 
more.  You  take  a  look  into  the  nations  that 
battered  down  the  Roman  empire  ;  you  catch  a 
glimpse  of  Carthaginian  civilization,  Assyrian, 
Babylonian,  Egyptian  ;  you  look  beyond  recorded 
history  into  the  swarming  and  suffering  popula- 
tions that  prepare  the  way  for  the  great  historic 
peoples  ;  you  look  still  farther  off  and  your  vision 
disappears  in  barbaric  hordes  and  groups  of  roam- 
ing savages.  You  sweep  together  from  the  four 
winds  of  heaven,  and  from  the  whole  field  of  time, 
all  the  races  of  man  since  man  appeared,  and  you 


THE  VISION  OF  THE  DEAD  15 

note  two  marks  upon  all,  the  possibility  of  endless 
growth  and  the  almost  universal  moral  failure. 
This  is  the  tremendous  total  that  to-day  stands 
in  the  Christian  imagination.  The  man  who  does 
not  feel  the  magnitude  of  the  problem  here  sug- 
gested is  either  inhuman  or  insane.  What  are 
we  to  think  of  this  multitude  whom  no  man  can 
number,  who  have  not  washed  their  robes,  who 
have  not  made  them  white  in  the  blood  of  the 
Lamb  ?  Have  we  no  word  from  our  Gospel  for 
the  overwhelming  majority  of  mankind  ?  Are  the 
millions  beside  whom  the  total  populations  of  all 
these  Christian  centuries,  in  all  the  world,  are  but 
as  a  drop  in  the  bucket,  of  no  concern  to  us  ?  Does 
it  in  no  way  affect  us  that  they  came  up  as  numer- 
ous as  clouds  of  insects  in  the  summer  heat, 
struggled,  suffered,  lived,  loved,  and  hoped  and 
died  ?  Does  it  not  touch  us  that  insignificant  as 
they  were,  yet  upon  their  labors  and  achievements 
the  later  civilizations  rest  ?  Does  it  not  inspire 
us  with  pity  to  think  that  they,  the  primitive  races, 
blazed  a  path  for  all  their  more  highly  favored 
brethren  who  were  to  follow  them  ?  Who  can 
sweep  up  into  imagination  those  early,  barbaric, 
suffering,  achieving,  forgotten  populations  of  the 
world,  and  look  upon  them  in  their  vast  aggre- 
gate, in  their  sin  and  shame,  in  their  suffering 
and  hope,  without  the  deepest  pity  ?  This  is  the 
problem  of  the   Christian   seer  to-day.      By  the 


16  THE  VISION  OF  THE  DEAD 

innumerable  dead  is  his  soul  disquieted.  They 
are  unfit  for  moral  bliss,  they  are  too  many  for 
doom. 

How  great  the  words  of  the  text  become  in  the 
presence  of  our  problem.  About  the  dead  chil- 
dren we  have  seen  the  comfort  they  bring  to  the 
bereaved  parenthood  of  the  world,  and  to  the 
humanity  of  all.  About  the  multitudes  who  are 
but  children  and  about  the  childhood  of  the  race ; 
about  the  individuals  and  about  the  races  that 
for  thousands  of  years  represent  the  infancy  of 
mankind  ;  about  all  the  tribes  and  peoples  and 
tongues  that,  with  all  their  sins  and  crimes,  have 
yet  prepared  the  way  for  the  fullness  of  time  in 
which  Christ  came,  the  words  of  the  mighty  seer 
bring  a  like  relief.  They  do  not  send  them  to 
heaven,  nor  do  they  doom  them  to  hell.  They 
simply  lift  the  veil  and  show  them  standing  before 
God. 

2.  The  great  vision  beholds  the  dead  swept  up 
into  the  presence  of  God,  —  swept  up  into  the 
presence  of  the  Christian  God.  You  can  learn 
much  about  the  noble  business  man  from  his  busi- 
ness, but  the  best  of  him  is  not  there.  You  can 
learn  much  about  the  character  of  a  great  ruler 
from  his  administration  of  public  affairs,  but  the 
highest  in  him  is  not  altogether  there.  You  can 
gain  refreshing  glimpses  of  a  high-minded  leader 
in  science  from  his  discoveries,  but  the  man  is 


THE   VISION  OF  THE  DEAD  17 

greater  than  the  scientist.  You  are  thankful  for 
the  revelation  of  soul  made  to  you  by  the  poet, 
and  yet  you  would  like  to  know  something  more 
about  him.  The  business  man  as  a  father,  the 
ruler  as  a  father,  the  scientist  as  a  father,  the 
poet  as  a  father  —  the  best  of  the  man  is  there. 
Lincoln  as  a  father,  Agassiz  as  a  father,  Tennyson 
as  a  father,  the  highest  in  each  comes  to  light 
through  that  great  relation.  All  the  justice,  all 
the  sympathy,  all  the  sternness  and  all  the  pity, 
all  the  wisdom  and  love  of  the  character  are  drawn 
to  revelation  here.  The  best  man  is  at  his  best 
as  a  father.  And  so  it  is  with  God.  We  may 
learn  a  great  deal  about  his  intelligence  and 
power  from  the  study  of  the  outward  world ;  and 
the  beauty  with  which  nature  overflows  may  lead 
us  to  think  of  the  infinite  creative  passion  for 
beauty  in  God.  We  may  learn  from  the  history 
of  man  yet  deeper  and  more  precious  things  about 
God.  It  is  from  history  that  the  great  generali- 
zation comes  that  God  is  the  eternal  power  not 
ourselves  that  makes  for  righteousness.  It  is 
from  history,  immeasurably  extended  as  it  has 
been  by  evolution,  that  we  see  God  working  toward 
the  production  of  the  highest  race,  the  race  of 
man,  and  the  highest  style  of  man,  the  Christian 
man,  and  the  highest  form  of  society,  the  king- 
dom of  God.  Great,  and  rich,  and  wonderful  are 
the  things  which  we  in  all  these  directions  may 


18  THE  VISION  OF  THE  DEAD 

come  to  know  about  God.  But  not  until  we  come 
to  our  Lord,  not  until  we  see  God  as  the  Father 
of  Jesus  Christ,  do  we  behold  the  highest  in  God. 
It  is  the  order  of  God  that  man  shall  come  to  his 
best  in  fatherhood ;  it  is  the  order  of  God  that 
he  shall  come  to  supreme  self-disclosure  in  his 
Son. 

We  must  therefore  think  of  the  dead  as  swept 
up  into  the  presence,  not  of  Infinite  power  merely, 
nor  of  Omniscient  mind,  nor  of  Eternal  justice, 
nor  of  Moral  will  marching  toward  its  own  su- 
preme ends,  but  of  Ineffable  Fatherhood.  Power, 
wisdom,  conscience,  purpose,  and  moral  might  are 
all  centred  in  and  greatened  by  fatherhood.  The 
dead,  small  and  great,  stand  before  the  God  and 
Father  of  Christ. 

3.  And  they  are  there  for  judgment.  The  con- 
text makes  this  plain.  "  And  I  saw  a  great  white 
throne,  and  him  that  sat  on  it,  from  whose  face 
the  earth  and  the  heaven  fled  away.  And  I  saw 
the  dead,  small  and  great,  stand  before  God ;  and 
the  books  were  opened :  and  another  book  was 
opened,  which  is  the  book  of  life :  and  the  dead 
were  judged  out  of  those  things  which  were  writ- 
ten in  the  books,  according  to  their  works." 

The  dead  are  before  God ;  they  all  are  before 
the  Christian  God ;  they  are  there  for  judgment 
according  to  their  works.  That  judgment  must 
be  one  of  absolute  honesty.     All  disguises  must 


THE  VISION  OF  THE  DEAD  19 

disappear,  all  concealments  must  dissolve  before 
the  eye  of  the  Eternal  Judge.  He  must  see  us 
as  we  are,  he  must  reveal  us  to  ourselves  as  we 
are,  he  must  deal  with  us  as  we  are. 

If  we  are  honest  we  shall  desire  nothing  else  ; 
if  we  are  not  honest  nothing  else  can  do  us  any- 
good.  There  is  but  one  ultimately  terrible  thing, 
the  possession  of  a  dishonest  mind,  an  unloving- 
heart,  an  unfaithful  will,  an  unrighteous  life.  That 
is  really  the  only  supreme  evil  in  the  universe. 
Nothing  can  avail  us  much  while  that  is  our  con- 
dition. Wealth,  position,  power,  fame  are  to  an 
unrighteous  soul  but  as  luxuries  by  the  bed  of  the 
dying.  As  was  said  of  the  President  whom  in 
1881  the  hand  of  the  assassin  struck  down,  "  the 
stately  mansion  of  power  was  to  him  the  weary 
hospital  of  pain."  An  unrighteous  life  throws 
the  universe  into  a  habitation  of  woe.  Honest 
men,  therefore,  see  that  what  they  need  above  all 
else  is  to  be  dealt  with  as  they  are.  They  need  to 
be  winnowed  by  the  fan  of  God.  The  righteous 
and  the  unrighteous,  the  good  and  the  evil,  the 
wheat  and  the  chaff,  lie  in  them  in  the  saddest 
confusion.  They  long  to  be  made  meet  for  the 
garners  of  God,  and  to  that  end  they  can  pray 
for  nothing  other  than  that  the  winds  of  God  may 
winnow  them  clean.  The  prayer  of  an  honest  man 
can  be  nothing  less  than  this :  — 


20  THE  VISION  OF  THE  DEAD 

11  Search  me,  O  God  and  know  my  heart : 
Try  me,  and  know  my  thoughts  : 
And  see  if  there  be  any  way  of  wickedness  in  me, 
And  lead  me  in  the  way  everlasting-." 

And  the  need  of  a  dishonest  man  must  be  just 
this.  He  does  not  know  how  bad  he  is ;  but  he 
must  be  made  to  know  it  through  suffering, 
through  the  terrible  but  righteous  judgments  of 
God.  Nothing  can  do  a  bad  man  essential  good 
but  that  which  leads  him  to  think  upon  his  evil 
ways,  to  abhor  them,  to  flee  from  them.  The 
wicked  man  has  one  supreme  need,  emancipation 
from  his  wickedness.  You  may  as  well  look  for 
gentleness  in  a  lion  ravenous  with  hunger  as  to 
look  for  peace  in  an  unholy  soul.  The  bitter 
fountain  gives  forth  bitter  water,  and  the  evil 
will  is  its  own  exceeding  misery.  It  is  so  here ; 
it  must  be  so  everywhere.  Judas  hangs  himself 
that  he  may  escape  from  his  misery ;  but  his 
misery  lies  in  his  character.  He  cannot  escape 
from  himself  ;  he  was  the  betrayer  of  Christ  be- 
fore death,  he  is  the  betrayer  of  Christ  after 
death.  His  need  is  not  a  change  of  place,  but  a 
change  of  soul.  As  the  mirror  gives  back  the 
image  of  the  face  presented  to  it,  so  the  universe, 
here  and  still  more  hereafter,  reports  our  moral 
likeness,  tells  the  whole  truth,  and  so  long  as  we 
are  in  it  thrusts  upon  us  the  sense  of  what  we  are. 

And  because  this  is  our  supreme  need,  the  God 


THE  VISION  OF  THE  DEAD  21 

and  Father  of  Christ  deals  with  us  as  we  are.  He 
knows  that  unrighteousness  is  our  woe,  that 
righteousness  is  our  infinite  joy.  His  judgments 
are  not  the  judgments  of  doom ;  they  are  the 
judgments  of  redemption.  He  judges  that  he 
may  afflict,  and  he  afflicts  that  he  may  save.  His 
eternal  intention  must  be  to  turn  man  through 
judgment  from  error  to  truth,  from  sin  to  holi- 
ness, from  the  godless  to  the  godly  life.  As  the 
light  that  falls  upon  the  battlefield  when  the  con- 
flict is  over,  when  the  fierce  passion  has  subsided, 
revealing  the  carnage  and  horror  of  war  in  the 
ghastly  faces  and  mutilated  forms  of  the  dead, 
and  in  the  anguish  of  the  wounded,  so  falls  the 
judgment  of  God  upon  man.  Nothing  is  hid, 
everything  is  revealed,  and  in  the  great  silent 
illumination  of  the  Divine  judgment,  the  awful 
forms  of  iniquity  lie  in  complete  exposure.  Then 
follows  the  suffering ;  but  is  it  necessarily  hopeless 
suffering  ?  Is  it  not  necessary  that  in  a  Divine 
universe  all  moral  pain  should  have  behind  it  a 
redemptive  purpose?  We  go  too  far  when  we 
say  that  that  purpose  must  prevail ;  but  can  be- 
lievers in  the  absolute  goodness  of  God  say  less 
than  that  redemptive  intention  is  at  the  heart  of 
all  moral  pain  ?  Surgery  aims  at  the  elimination 
of  disease  and  the  restoration  of  life.  Surgery 
without  anaesthetics,  awful  surgery  aiming  to  cut 
out  sin,  and  to  raise  the  soul  into  holiness  —  that 


22  THE  VISION  OF  THE  DEAD 

must  be  the  judgment  of  God.  Even  if  we  believe 
that  the  redemptive  purpose  of  God  must  fail  of 
complete  sovereignty,  we  must  still  guard  that 
which  constitutes  the  greatness  of  the  Divine  judg- 
ment, its  infinite  kindness.  It  cannot  be,  in  its 
intention,  a  sentence  of  doom ;  it  must  be  a  chas- 
tisement in  the  interest  of  eternal  life. 

Thus  much,  then,  we  may  learn  from  this  vision 
of  the  dead.  The  dead  are  with  God ;  they  are 
with  the  Christian  God ;  they  are  there  for  judg- 
ment because  they  need  above  all  things  else  to 
see  themselves  as  they  are,  and  to  be  dealt  with 
as  they  are.  And  shall  we  not  leave  them  with 
God  ?  Shall  we  not  leave  them  there  with  the 
assurance  that  he  will  deal  with  them  righteously, 
that  he  will  do  all  that  the  God  and  the  Father  of 
Christ  can  do  to  take  them  out  of  their  sins  and 
to  lift  them  into  holiness  ?  As  I  read  the  great 
Judgment  Parables  of  our  Lord,  I  feel  the  inex- 
pressible seriousness  of  living,  the  absoluteness  of 
moral  law,  the  necessity  for  peace  of  an  ethical 
faith  fulfilling  itself  in  human  service,  the  awful- 
ness  of  the  selfish  heart,  the  indefinite  courses 
of  fiery  discipline  that  await  the  godless  and  the 
inhuman.  But  I  cannot  feel  that  the  extreme 
interpretation  of  these  parables  is  the  true  inter- 
pretation. I  cannot  here  give  the  reasons  for  this 
conviction,  but  I  can  offer  one  line  of  suggestion. 

One  great  difficulty  with  us,  on  these  momen- 


THE  VISION  OF  THE  DEAD  23 

tous  themes,  is  that  we  hear  for  others,  and  not  for 
ourselves.  The  teaching  of  this  sermon  may  seem 
too  easy  for  a  wicked  world,  its  message  from  the 
Vision  of  the  Dead  may  appear  too  considerate 
for  an  unrighteous  race.  And  so  long  as  we  try 
our  severe  beliefs  upon  other  people,  like  savages 
testing  their  terrible  knives  upon  fellow  savages, 
we  shall  never  reach  the  mood  to  which  wise 
conclusions  are  possible.  We  begin  at  the  wrong 
end.  For  you  who  have  stood  by  the  grave  of 
parents  revered,  and  yet  sadly  imperfect ;  for  you 
who  have  seen  brothers  and  sisters  borne  from  the 
home,  young,  beautiful,  but  unconfirmed,  and 
hardly  introduced  to  the  divine  life ;  for  you  who 
have  lifted  up  the  voice  of  sorrow  over  dead 
children  infinitely  dear,  but  all  undeveloped,  is 
the  teaching  in  this  sermon  too  good  ?  Is  it  too 
full  of  opportunity  for  those  who  are  gone,  and 
too  rich  in  consolation  for  you?  Is  the  line  of 
teaching  here  suggested  at  war  with  your  con- 
science as  the  father  of  an  erring  boy  who  has 
forever  gone  from  your  sight?  Is  it  a  shock  to 
your  fatherhood  to  say  that  your  poor  boy  is 
before  God,  that  he  is  there  to  be  judged  accord- 
ing to  his  works,  that  he  is  there  to  suffer  what 
no  word  or  image  can  adequately  express,  but  that 
behind  all  the  judgment  and  all  the  woe  is  the 
Divine  purpose  that  would  still  redeem  him? 
Surely  you  do  not  ask  for  one  line  of  teaching  for 


24  THE  VISION  OF  THE  DEAD 

yourself,  one  sort  of  interpretation  of  Christ's 
supremely  solemn  words  for  the  souls  that  are 
inexpressibly  dear  to  you,  and  at  the  same  time 
demand  something  different  for  other  souls. 
Surely  we  must  break  up  the  habit  of  mind  that 
hears  first  for  the  unknown,  the  unacknowledged, 
the  unpitied  masses  of  mankind ;  we  must  return 
to  the  mood  that  tests  all  teaching  by  its  adequacy 
to  our  own  human  need  and  hope. 

The  ground  upon  which  men  are  approved  in 
the  supreme  Judgment  Parable  of  Christ  is  Chris- 
tian humanity.  It  is  not  penitence,  but  possession, 
beautiful,  unconscious  possession,  that  is  the  basis 
of  the  high  award.  Nothing  in  that  scene  of 
inconceivable  solemnity  counts  but  Christian 
character.  Nothing  is  said  about  belief,  about 
repentance,  about  enrollment  in  the  church  of 
Christ,  about  confidence  in  the  sacrifice  of  the 
Lord  and  the  forgiveness  of  sins.  However  great 
all  these  things  may  be,  however  essential  to 
human  heart  and  hope,  they  do  not  appear,  they 
all  are  barred  out  from  the  Eternal  Assize.  There 
the  supreme  and  only  question  is  the  possession  of 
Christian  humanity.  Let  the  great  words  speak 
for  themselves :  "  Then  shall  the  King  say  unto 
them  on  his  right  hand,  Come,  ye  blessed  of  my 
Father,  inherit  the  kingdom  prepared  for  you 
from  the  foundation  of  the  world :  for  I  was  an 
hungered,  and  ye  gave  me  meat :  I  was  thirsty,  and 


THE   VISION  OF  THE  DEAD  25 

ye  gave  me  drink :  I  was  a  stranger,  and  ye  took 
me  in ;  naked,  and  ye  clothed  me :  I  was  sick,  and 
ye  visited  me  :  I  was  in  prison,  and  ye  came  unto 
me.  Then  shall  the  righteous  answer  him,  saying, 
Lord,  when  saw  we  thee  an  hungered,  and  fed 
thee  ?  or  athirst,  and  gave  thee  drink  ?  And  when 
saw  we  thee  a  stranger,  and  took  thee  in?  or  naked, 
and  clothed  thee  ?  And  when  saw  we  thee  sick, 
or  in  prison,  and  came  unto  thee  ?  And  the  King 
shall  answer  and  say  unto  them,  Verily  I  say  unto 
you,  Inasmuch  as  ye  did  it  unto  one  of  these  my 
brethren,  even  these  least,  ye  did  it  unto  me." 

Now  if  the  extreme  interpretation  is  the  true 
interpretation,  if  only  those  who  give  evidence, 
not  to  fond  and  partial  friends,  but  to  the  all- 
seeing  God,  that  they  are  in  the  spirit  of  Christian 
kindness,  who  can  be  saved  ?  Are  we  sure  for  our 
dearest  dead,  for  our  children,  our  brethren,  our- 
selves? Who  is  there,  here  or  elsewhere,  that 
comes  up  to  the  standard  of  beholding  Christ,  by 
implication  of  benign  ministry,  in  the  wrecks  of 
human  life  ?  We  love  our  children,  but  we  must 
admit  that  they  are  full  of  unworthiness,  that  often 
the  law  of  Christian  kindness  is  not  in  their  tongue. 
We  love  them,  and  we  thank  God  for  them, 
and  still  we  must  confess  that  they  spend  much 
upon  themselves,  and  oh,  so  little  upon  "  these 
least "  in  whose  anguish  Christ  makes  his  appeal. 
If,  therefore,  we  are  honest,  we  cannot  escape  the 


26  THE  VISION  OF  THE  DEAD 

feeling  that  our  dearest  are  candidates  for  doom. 
We  must  face  the  horror  that  if  destiny  is  fixed 
in  this  life,  if  failure  to  gain  Christian  kindness 
here  determines  the  soul's  condition  forever,  our 
children,  by  the  multitude,  are  on  the  way  to  ever- 
lasting torment.  If  this  is  the  truth,  let  us  stand 
by  it.  If  all  destinies  are  decided  by  behavior  on 
earth,  and  if  failure  to  attain  Christian  humanity 
on  this  side  of  the  grave  means  endless  expulsion 
from  the  presence  of  God,  let  us  be  honest  enough 
to  apply  the  truth  to  our  own  souls,  to  our  own 
children,  to  our  own  dead.  Let  us  not  be  guilty 
of  the  ineffable  baseness  of  claiming  for  ourselves 
what  we  think  is  too  good  for  mankind,  of  miti- 
gating God's  judgments  where  our  flesh  and  blood 
are  concerned,  and  of  allowing  no  similar  mitiga- 
tion where  the  race  is  involved.  If  the  conception 
of  everlasting  conscious  torment  for  failure  to 
gain  Christian  humanity  before  death  is  the  stern 
and  terrible  truth,  let  us  be  honest  enough  and 
brave  enough  to  begin  the  application  at  our  own 
homes. 

Christ's  teachings  are  for  all  his  disciples  the 
final  authority.  They  should  be  read  with  the 
utmost  earnestness  and  with  the  aid  of  all  avail- 
able good  scholarship.  Yet  more  should  they  be 
studied  under  the  guidance  of  life.  Let  the 
devout  old  Christian  read  his  Master's  most 
solemn  words  with  all  seriousness  and  with  abso- 


THE  VISION  OF  THE  DEAD  27 

lute  honesty;  but  let  him  read  with  his  grand- 
child on  his  knee.  Let  the  disciple,  accustomed 
to  the  extreme  view  of  the  future  for  those  who 
die  in  sin,  ponder  the  teachings  of  his  Lord,  but 
let  him  ponder  with  his  family  gathered  about 
him.  Let  fatherhood,  let  motherhood  throw  its 
light  upon  the  page ;  let  brotherhood  speak ;  let 
the  humanity  upon  which  the  judgment  parable 
turns  be  heard ;  let  life  in  all  its  myriad  interests 
lift  up  its  voice.  These  are  the  commentators  to 
which  I  beg  you  to  pay  the  deepest  heed ;  these 
are  the  interpreters  that  will  save  you  from 
extremes ;  these  are  the  guides  that  will  conduct 
you  to  the  vision  of  the  dead  standing  before  God. 
Let  us  ever  remember  that  the  God  who  is  a 
consuming  fire  is  the  God  of  love.  Let  us  ever 
bear  in  mind  that  he  can  approve  nothing  but 
righteousness,  that  for  this  <even  on  the  part  of 
the  disciples  of  Christ  there  can  be  no  substitutes. 
Penitence  has  no  value  for  judgment;  nothing 
but  love  can  avail  there.  And  if  our  own  life 
would  be  insupportable  were  we  forbidden  to 
trust  God  for  an  endless  opportunity  to  win 
through  the  Eternal  Spirit  his  approval,  we  shall 
hardly  dare  to  hold  a  narrower  faith  for  our 
fellow  men.  We  shall  recall  the  fact  that  the 
supreme  sin  according  to  Christ  is  inhumanity. 
"Inasmuch  as  ye  did  it  not  unto  one  of  these 
least,  ye  did  it  not  unto  me."     Inhumanity  is  the 


28  THE  VISION  OF  THE  DEAD 

deepest  rejection  of  Christianity;  the  denial  of 
human  rights,  human  worth,  and  human  need 
means  the  denial  of  God.  And  with  this  as  the 
centre  of  Christ's  most  solemn  teaching  upon  the 
future  world,  however  much  we  may  be  perplexed 
by  certain  aspects  of  that  teaching,  however 
much  we  may  be  tempted  to  run  it  out  into  a 
heaven  and  hell  set  in  God's  universe  in  eternal 
contrast,  if  we  are  wise  we  shall  pause  lest  in  our 
zeal  for  words  we  deny  the  Word,  lest  in  our 
loyalty  to  Scripture  we  ignore  man  and  scorn 
Christ,  lest  in  our  passion  for  Orthodoxy  we  re- 
peat the  awful  sin  of  denying  through  our  inhu- 
manity the  God  and  Father  of  Jesus  Christ. 
First  thoughts,  surface  readings,  literal  and  iso- 
lated interpretations  of  our  Master's  teachings 
may  place  us  among  the  supporters  of  the  tradi- 
tional Inferno ;  but  deeper  reflection,  profounder 
study,  wider  and  wiser  interpretations  will  find 
in  our  Lord's  words  nothing  in  conflict  with  his 
great  disciple's  vision  of  the  dead.  The  universe 
is  swept  up  into  the  presence  of  God ;  the  uni- 
verse is  shot  through  and  through  with  his  awful 
and  absolute  righteousness,  with  his  eternal  re- 
deeming love. 


